The Sea-Wolf
He put a few spokes over, and I watched the compass-card swing slowly to
N.N.W. and steady itself with slight oscillations.
I took a fresh hold on my bedclothes and was preparing to start on, when
some movement caught my eye and I looked astern to the rail. A sinewy
hand, dripping with water, was clutching the rail. A second hand took
form in the darkness beside it. I watched, fascinated. What visitant
from the gloom of the deep was I to behold? Whatever it was, I knew that
it was climbing aboard by the log-line. I saw a head, the hair wet and
straight, shape itself, and then the unmistakable eyes and face of Wolf
Larsen. His right cheek was red with blood, which flowed from some wound
in the head.
He drew himself inboard with a quick effort, and arose to his feet,
glancing swiftly, as he did so, at the man at the wheel, as though to
assure himself of his identity and that there was nothing to fear from
him. The sea-water was streaming from him. It made little audible
gurgles which distracted me. As he stepped toward me I shrank back
instinctively, for I saw that in his eyes which spelled death.
“All right, Hump,” he said in a low voice. “Where’s the mate?”
I shook my head.
“Johansen!” he called softly. “Johansen!”
“Where is he?” he demanded of Harrison.
The young fellow seemed to have recovered his composure, for he answered
steadily enough, “I don’t know, sir. I saw him go for’ard a little while
ago.”
“So did I go for’ard. But you will observe that I didn’t come back the
way I went. Can you explain it?”
“You must have been overboard, sir.”
“Shall I look for him in the steerage, sir?” I asked.
Wolf Larsen shook his head. “You wouldn’t find him, Hump. But you’ll
do. Come on. Never mind your bedding. Leave it where it is.”
I followed at his heels. There was nothing stirring amidships.
“Those cursed hunters,” was his comment. “Too damned fat and lazy to
stand a four-hour watch.”
But on the forecastle-head we found three sailors asleep. He turned them
over and looked at their faces. They composed the watch on deck, and it
was the ship’s custom, in good weather, to let the watch sleep with the
exception of the officer, the helmsman, and the look-out.
“Who’s look-out?” he demanded.
“Me, sir,” answered Holyoak, one of the deep-water sailors, a slight
tremor in his voice. “I winked off just this very minute, sir. I’m
sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”
“Did you hear or see anything on deck?”
“No, sir, I—”
But Wolf Larsen had turned away with a snort of disgust, leaving the
sailor rubbing his eyes with surprise at having been let off so easily.
“Softly, now,” Wolf Larsen warned me in a whisper, as he doubled his body
into the forecastle scuttle and prepared to descend.
I followed with a quaking heart. What was to happen I knew no more than
did I know what had happened. But blood had been shed, and it was
through no whim of Wolf Larsen that he had gone over the side with his
scalp laid open. Besides, Johansen was missing.
It was my first descent into the forecastle, and I shall not soon forget
my impression of it, caught as I stood on my feet at the bottom of the
ladder. Built directly in the eyes of the schooner, it was of the shape
of a triangle, along the three sides of which stood the bunks, in
double-tier, twelve of them. It was no larger than a hall bedroom in
Grub Street, and yet twelve men were herded into it to eat and sleep and
carry on all the functions of living. My bedroom at home was not large,
yet it could have contained a dozen similar forecastles, and taking into
consideration the height of the ceiling, a score at least.
It smelled sour and musty, and by the dim light of the swinging sea-lamp
I saw every bit of available wall-space hung deep with sea-boots,
oilskins, and garments, clean and dirty, of various sorts. These swung
back and forth with every roll of the vessel, giving rise to a brushing
sound, as of trees against a roof or wall. Somewhere a boot thumped
loudly and at irregular intervals against the wall; and, though it was a
mild night on the sea, there was a continual chorus of the creaking
timbers and bulkheads and of abysmal noises beneath the flooring.
The sleepers did not mind. There were eight of them,—the two watches
below,—and the air was thick with the warmth and odour of their
breathing, and the ear was filled with the noise of their snoring and of
their sighs and half-groans, tokens plain of the rest of the animal-man.
But were they sleeping? all of them? Or had they been sleeping? This
was evidently Wolf Larsen’s quest—to find the men who appeared to be
asleep and who were not asleep or who had not been asleep very recently.
And he went about it in a way that reminded me of a story out of
Boccaccio.
He took the sea-lamp from its swinging frame and handed it to me. He
began at the first bunks forward on the star-board side. In the top one
lay Oofty-Oofty, a Kanaka and splendid seaman, so named by his mates. He
was asleep on his back and breathing as placidly as a woman. One arm was
under his head, the other lay on top of the blankets. Wolf Larsen put
thumb and forefinger to the wrist and counted the pulse. In the midst of
it the Kanaka roused. He awoke as gently as he slept. There was no
movement of the body whatever. The eyes, only, moved. They flashed wide
open, big and black, and stared, unblinking, into our faces. Wolf Larsen
put his finger to his lips as a sign for silence, and the eyes closed
again.
In the lower bunk lay Louis, grossly fat and warm and sweaty, asleep
unfeignedly and sleeping laboriously. While Wolf Larsen held his wrist
he stirred uneasily, bowing his body so that for a moment it rested on
shoulders and heels. His lips moved, and he gave voice to this enigmatic
utterance:
“A shilling’s worth a quarter; but keep your lamps out for
thruppenny-bits, or the publicans ’ll shove ’em on you for sixpence.”
Then he rolled over on his side with a heavy, sobbing sigh, saying:
“A sixpence is a tanner, and a shilling a bob; but what a pony is I don’t
know.”
Satisfied with the honesty of his and the Kanaka’s sleep, Wolf Larsen
passed on to the next two bunks on the starboard side, occupied top and
bottom, as we saw in the light of the sea-lamp, by Leach and Johnson.
As Wolf Larsen bent down to the lower bunk to take Johnson’s pulse, I,
standing erect and holding the lamp, saw Leach’s head rise stealthily as
he peered over the side of his bunk to see what was going on. He must
have divined Wolf Larsen’s trick and the sureness of detection, for the
light was at once dashed from my hand and the forecastle was left in
darkness. He must have leaped, also, at the same instant, straight down
on Wolf Larsen.
The first sounds were those of a conflict between a bull and a wolf. I
heard a great infuriated bellow go up from Wolf Larsen, and from Leach a
snarling that was desperate and blood-curdling. Johnson must have joined
him immediately, so that his abject and grovelling conduct on deck for
the past few days had been no more than planned deception.
I was so terror-stricken by this fight in the dark that I leaned against
the ladder, trembling and unable to ascend. And upon me was that old
sickness at the pit of the stomach, caused always by the spectacle of
physical violence. In this instance I could not see, but I could hear
the impact of the blows—the soft crushing sound made by flesh striking
forcibly against flesh. Then there was the crashing about of the
entwined bodies, the laboured breathing, the short quick gasps of sudden
pain.
There must have been more men in the conspiracy to murder the captain and
mate, for by the sounds I knew that Leach and Johnson had been quickly
reinforced by some of their mates.
“Get a knife somebody!” Leach was shouting.
“Pound him on the head! Mash his brains out!” was Johnson’s cry.
But after his first bellow, Wolf Larsen made no noise. He was fighting
grimly and silently for life. He was sore beset. Down at the very
first, he had been unable to gain his feet, and for all of his tremendous
strength I felt that there was no hope for him.
The force with which they struggled was vividly impressed on me; for I
was knocked down by their surging bodies and badly bruised. But in the
confusion I managed to crawl into an empty lower bunk out of the way.
“All hands! We’ve got him! We’ve got him!” I could hear Leach crying.
“Who?” demanded those who had been really asleep, and who had wakened to
they knew not what.
“It’s the bloody mate!” was Leach’s crafty answer, strained from him in a
smothered sort of way.
This was greeted with whoops of joy, and from then on Wolf Larsen had
seven strong men on top of him, Louis, I believe, taking no part in it.
The forecastle was like an angry hive of bees aroused by some marauder.
“What ho! below there!” I heard Latimer shout down the scuttle, too
cautious to descend into the inferno of passion he could hear raging
beneath him in the darkness.
“Won’t somebody get a knife? Oh, won’t somebody get a knife?” Leach
pleaded in the first interval of comparative silence.
The number of the assailants was a cause of confusion. They blocked
their own efforts, while Wolf Larsen, with but a single purpose, achieved
his. This was to fight his way across the floor to the ladder. Though
in total darkness, I followed his progress by its sound. No man less
than a giant could have done what he did, once he had gained the foot of
the ladder. Step by step, by the might of his arms, the whole pack of
men striving to drag him back and down, he drew his body up from the
floor till he stood erect. And then, step by step, hand and foot, he
slowly struggled up the ladder.
The very last of all, I saw. For Latimer, having finally gone for a
lantern, held it so that its light shone down the scuttle. Wolf Larsen
was nearly to the top, though I could not see him. All that was visible
was the mass of men fastened upon him. It squirmed about, like some huge
many-legged spider, and swayed back and forth to the regular roll of the
vessel. And still, step by step with long intervals between, the mass
ascended. Once it tottered, about to fall back, but the broken hold was
regained and it still went up.
“Who is it?” Latimer cried.
In the rays of the lantern I could see his perplexed face peering down.
“Larsen,” I heard a muffled voice from within the mass.
Latimer reached down with his free hand. I saw a hand shoot up to clasp
his. Latimer pulled, and the next couple of steps were made with a rush.
Then Wolf Larsen’s other hand reached up and clutched the edge of the
scuttle. The mass swung clear of the ladder, the men still clinging to
their escaping foe. They began to drop off, to be brushed off against
the sharp edge of the scuttle, to be knocked off by the legs which were
now kicking powerfully. Leach was the last to go, falling sheer back
from the top of the scuttle and striking on head and shoulders upon his
sprawling mates beneath. Wolf Larsen and the lantern disappeared, and we
were left in darkness.
CHAPTER XV
There was a deal of cursing and groaning as the men at the bottom of the
ladder crawled to their feet.
“Somebody strike a light, my thumb’s out of joint,” said one of the men,
Parsons, a swarthy, saturnine man, boat-steerer in Standish’s boat, in
which Harrison was puller.
“You’ll find it knockin’ about by the bitts,” Leach said, sitting down on
the edge of the bunk in which I was concealed.
There was a fumbling and a scratching of matches, and the sea-lamp flared
up, dim and smoky, and in its weird light bare-legged men moved about
nursing their bruises and caring for their hurts. Oofty-Oofty laid hold